Writing fellows and English faculty give presentations at conference on teaching composition

Together with undergraduate Writing Fellows Meghan Danley ’15, a Marine Biology major and English minor, and Joshua Powers (Undeclared ‘17), Cathrine O. Frank, Ph.D., associate professor of English, and Jennifer Gennaco, M.A., adjunct lecturer in English, delivered presentations at the Engaging Practices conference on teaching composition, held at the University of Massachusetts in Boston on Saturday, March 28, 2015. 

The panelists’ presentations focused on aspects of UNE’s relatively new Writing Fellows Program, which embeds undergraduate peer tutors in Core courses that include a significant writing and revision component. Frank, writing fellows coordinator, framed the initiative and panel, while Gennaco, participating faculty in the program, examined the role of faculty in the initiative.

Both Danley and Powers presented papers from the undergraduate writing fellows’ perspectives. Danley focused attention on the relationships between documentation style and meaning making across academic disciplines, while Powers made a case for the role of a writing fellow in helping undergraduate writers expand their preexisting ideas about the writing and revision process.

UNE’s undergraduate Writing Fellows Program is jointly supported by the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and an external grant received from the Davis Educational Foundation, established by Stanton and Elizabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’ retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc.